Put in a spot

Spare a thought for Daniel Ek's PR manager. The CEO of music streaming service Spotify put his foot in his mouth recently with a comment that has riled up the global music community. Ek said in an interview that given current distribution models, artistes can't afford to release material once every three to four years and expect to get by. What he essentially did with that statement is commodify a creative art form into a factory-made product that you can buy off a supermarket shelf. Many of the world's biggest musicians, such as David Crosby and Mike Mills of R.E.M, had some colourful words for him in response that aren't suitable for a family newspaper. But even closer to home, Indian artistes aren't exactly putting their hands up to defend what he said.

Keshav Dhar of progressive metal act Skyharbor is one such person who took to social media to take Ek to the cleaners. He tells us that the CEO has devalued the very art form that he built his career on. Dhar says, "It [Spotify] is a business. I understand that. But it's a little rich for Ek to say what he did when he is profiteering massively from our work. It's insulting. The facts are there for all to see. The payout you get from streams is an absolute embarrassment, it's like 0.000 something cents per listen. So you have to get millions of hits to earn enough whereas, on the other hand, people like Ek are making a fortune. It's daylight robbery, to be honest."

Keshav Dhar

He adds that Ek's views are also problematic because you can't put a timeline on an individual's creativity, unless it's a commissioned project. If it's an album that artistes are making for themselves, they have to start from a blank canvas on which they paint their musical expressions, instead of simply making a quick meme. There will be a glaring lack of integrity otherwise, which is a viewpoint that Mumbai-based musician Donn Bhat also endorses. Bhat tells us, "There's a reason why songs that were made 50, 30, 20 or even 10 years ago are still relevant. It's because people took their time in paving the way for what's happening now. But Ek is cheapening music to the sort of 30-second attention span that social media encourages. It's the stuff that marketing and PR managers talk about. Tell me, can you imagine Pink Floyd going up to a publicist and saying, 'Hey, we have made this album called The Wall. What do you think of it?' I mean, Ek has basically turned musicians into monkeys in a circus who are supposed to perform new tricks every day."

Donn Bhat

That's a harsh metaphor, but it's in line with the inference that the music community has drawn from the CEO's words. Both Dhar and Bhat hope that he takes a leaf out of his rival Bandcamp's books, which they feel does a much better job of compensating artistes. Meanwhile, Ek hasn't yet come out with a statement clarifying, or even justifying, what he said. But even the world's best PR people will struggle to reduce the resultant negative publicity. So, really, do spare a thought for the ones who manage him.

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